


Jim Kirk and B.O.B.'s kittens

by smarshtastic



Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: Fluff, Gen, kid!Jim
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-28
Updated: 2011-12-28
Packaged: 2017-10-28 07:34:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/305399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smarshtastic/pseuds/smarshtastic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jim likes to hide out in a barn not too far from the Kirk homestead. The barn's a better home than his house, but now it's been invaded.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Jim Kirk and B.O.B.'s kittens

The old barn was a couple miles down the road from the Kirk homestead. Unused and practically falling apart, it was one of Jim’s favorite hiding places from a fairy young age. As he reached his early teenage years, Jim spent more and more time at the barn. On rainy nights it was a long walk, but it was always guaranteed to be a safe place. Jim made the hay loft into his own little nest; with an old blanket and a couple of lanterns stolen from the hardware store in town, it was a perfect escape, an excellent spot to work on homework in peace, or just take a nap.

Jim sat cross-legged in his hay loft, several (stolen) tools lying on the wooden boards beside him. He was working on converting the lanterns from battery to rechargeable solar, something he had read in a textbook at school. If he could figure it out, Jim wouldn’t have to steal so many batteries. He frowned in concentration, tongue set between his teeth, wholly involved in manipulating the little pieces inside the lantern.

A strange noise broke Jim’s concentration. The barn tended to creak and sway, especially on windy nights, but this noise was definitely out of the ordinary. Carefully, quietly, Jim set the lantern down but kept the screw driver in his hand, just in case. He crouched, very still, listening. He heard the noise again, and it was coming from the corner of the hay loft. Jim crept in that direction, light on his feet from years of tip-toeing around Frank. Something moved behind a pile of old hay. He inched in the direction of the movement, until suddenly something jumped out at him. Jim fell back, startled.

A large, orange tabby cat hissed at Jim, hackles raised. Jim blinked.

“Shoo,” he said, picking himself up off the floor. He brandished the screw driver at the cat, trying to scare it off. This was his place, and he wasn’t about to share it with some other creature. “Go away – find your own hidey hole.”

The cat puffed itself up at Jim again, taking a step back, further into the corner. “No – out, get out – “  
The cat hissed and bounded away, disappearing into the hay before Jim could get any closer. He dug through some of the hay, but the cat was nowhere to be found. Jim gave up after a few minutes of digging, and went back to his lanterns, keeping an ear cocked in case the cat came back, but it stayed away the rest of the night.

***

A couple days later, Jim was working on his homework by the light of the newly modified lanterns. He was working through some particularly difficult trigonometry problems, tongue set between his teeth in concentration. A strange, small sound disrupted his concentration. He wouldn’t have noticed, but the noise was persistent, cutting through his thoughts. Jim got up to investigate. He hadn’t seen the cat again, which was good, but maybe some other creature had made its way into his barn. He’d have to go looking for holes in the wood or something, before it got too cold to make any repairs …

In the corner of the hay loft, Jim found the cat. She was looking much skinnier, curled up with three tiny kittens, which seemed to be the source of the small noise. Jim’s annoyance with seeing the cat again melted away almost immediately upon seeing the kittens. He crouched down close to the mother and her babies, peering at the tiny wriggling creatures. The cat regarded Jim suspiciously, curling tighter, protectively around her kittens, a low growl building in her throat.

“Huh,” Jim said out loud. He moved away back to his school things and fished out some of the sandwich he had saved from lunch. He pulled out the insides of the sandwich, some sort of lunchmeat, and brought it back to the mother cat.

“Here,” he said. “You could probably use this more than me.”

The cat looked at Jim with that same suspicious stare. “I know, I know, you remember the screwdriver,” Jim said, tearing off a little piece of the lunchmeat. He popped it in his mouth. “See? Safe as can be,” he said, holding out the meat to the cat again. After a moment, she gobbled it up. Jim smiled, deciding right then that he would help out this cat and her family in any way he could.

***

Jim made a point of stealing extra food for the momma cat over the next couple of weeks. The cat stopped looking at Jim all suspiciously, and even let him pet her from time to time. She was still fiercely protective of her kittens, though, even when they started to open their eyes and explore the hay loft. But she warmed up to him and the kittens were incredibly curious and playful. Jim had never had pets before, so this was an exciting and rather novel experience.

One evening, Jim was working on a model for his biology class. They were building ecosystems – layers of plants and dirt on top, gravel, and then a fish and aquatic plants. The kittens were a couple weeks old and running all over the hay loft, apparently having gotten into some sort of weird hyperactive-making substance. Usually it was very cute, but tonight they kept getting in the way. The two orange kittens kept trying to tear apart Jim’s little plant, while the usually quiet darker kitten was eyeing Jim’s fish with interest.

“No – no, Sidhe – no, bad kitty,” Jim said, lifting the darkest kitten away from the bowl where the fish was residing. He held the kitten up with one hand, sliding a book over the top of the bowl with the other. He called the kittens Sidhe, Bakeneko, and Lynx (they were doing a section on mythologies in ancient history), and the mother was called the Beast of Bodmin, or BOB. Sidhe, the darkest and the littlest, was his favorite, but he didn’t tell the other kittens, which were now systematically tearing apart his plants. “No! Augh!”

BOB watched from her little nest, unconcerned about her offspring’s taste for destruction. Jim scooped up the other wiggling kittens and held them, with some difficulty, in his lap. He frowned sternly at the kittens.

“No eating my biology project, okay? Go play with each other,” he ran his hand over each of the kittens in turn, hoping to calm them down. Jim got up and deposited the kittens with their mother, who gave Jim a reproachful look. “Hey, they’re your kids, don’t look at me like that.”

Jim retreated back to his project, and tried to salvage the remains of his plant. He didn’t work more than a few minutes before Sidhe made a dive for the fish bowl, knocking the book off and spilling most of the water. The fish looked quite alarmed. Sidhe got a bit wet, and was very displeased. Jim held the kitten against his chest as he checked on the shell-shocked fish. “Bad kitty,” Jim scolded, reaching for a water bottle to refill the fish’s bowl. “I thought only dogs were supposed to eat kids’ homework, huh?”

While Jim was distracted, Bakeneko and Lynx finished destroying the plant. Needless to say, he didn’t get high marks on his project. The fish had been traumatized by its brush with feline-induced death, and succumbed to its fate the day his project was due.

***

BOB and Jim had a strange kind of understanding. They acknowledged each other’s presence, but rarely interacted beyond that. They both respected the other for their dedication to the kittens, and so co-existed peacefully.

The bigger the kittens got, the more they explored. There was a two week period where every time Jim came back to the barn, there was a dead rodent of some kind waiting for him. Jim considered taking one of the corpses back to freak out Frank, but they were pretty thoroughly mauled, which didn’t make for easy or pleasant handling. He wondered which of the kittens the hunter was.

Jim stayed overnight during that fortnight, curled up on his own little nest. Sidhe wedged herself in the crook of Jim’s arm and slept with him the whole night, purring. The other kittens came and went, crawling over Jim as he slept. When he woke the next morning, there was another mouse waiting for him. BOB was looking extremely pleased with herself.

“What’d you do?” Jim asked, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. BOB puffed out her chest and meowed at Jim. “Are you trying to intimidate me, or give me presents?”

BOB turned her tail and went to settle into her corner. Jim shook his head.

“I guess I’ll never know,” Jim said, moving to clean up the corpse before the kittens tore it apart.

***

Sidhe was sick. It was starting to get cold outside, and those months in the barn were tough. Jim stole as much insulation as he could, from various construction sites around town, but it almost never was enough. Sidhe was moving sluggishly, when she moved at all. Jim brought her extra food, but she didn’t seem to want any of it. The other kittens were as healthy and playful as ever, and BOB, though occasionally fearsomely protective, went out on her own more and more. He did some research, looking for anything that might help little Sidhe.

Sidhe was his favorite. Maybe it was the way she was sneaky and devious, or maybe it was because she was scrawny like him. But Jim had a soft spot for her, and always made sure to look out for her in particular.

On a particularly cold night, Jim made sure that BOB and the two orange kittens had enough food, and then he picked up poor little Sidhe, wrapping her up in his scarf and then tucking her down the front of his jacket, a tiny little bundle, warming against his chest. He made the long trek back to his mother’s house, keeping one hand on Sidhe the whole way home.

Frank was asleep in the front room, the holovids still on, so Jim crept around to the back door. It creaked, but the noise in the living room must’ve drowned out the creaking sound. He dropped his school bag on the floor by the door and moved around the kitchen, looking for ingredients. He found a recipe for a fortified kitten formula, and maybe Sidhe was a little older than they had specified, but it couldn’t hurt. The kitten was trembling slightly against his chest as Jim moved around the kitchen. Jim kept an ear cocked toward the front room, but there weren’t any Frank rumblings, and he managed to get the kitten and the formula up to his room without incident.

Jim settled down on his bed, carefully unwrapping Sidhe from his scarf. She curled sluggishly into him, breathing hard.

“It’s okay, Sidhe,” Jim said, running a finger gently over her little head. “You’ll be okay, I’ll take care of you. I got you something that should make you feel better.”

Jim wrapped his finger in his scarf and dipped it into the formula. “C’mon, have some of this,” he said. He pressed his finger to Sidhe’s mouth, but she tried to turn away. Jim was persistent and managed to get his finger into Sidhe’s mouth, and, finally, after several moments, she suckled. Relieved, Jim laughed and fed Sidhe more.

He managed to get her to drink most of the formula, and she perked up after that pretty quickly. Jim hummed to her through the night, staying up with her to make sure she was okay. He reheated the formula a couple times during the night. Sidhe ate a little more, and by morning she was exploring Jim’s bed like the curious little kitten she was. Jim, exhausted from having stayed up with her all night, bundled her back up into his coat and snuck out of the house before Frank woke.


End file.
